Third of emissions cuts must come from behaviour changes

[AE-NMidlands]

Stating the bleedin' obvious, but someone needs to call the govt. out on this...
https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... -committee saya

Third of emissions cuts must come from behaviour changes, say Lords

Committee report says government approach on guiding people in tackling climate crisis is muddled and inadequate

A report published on Wednesday by the upper house’s environment and climate change committee urged ministers to lead a public campaign and use regulations and taxation to guide public behaviour change in order to stop the decline of nature and reach legally binding net zero targets.
The public sought leadership from government to guide and inform them on how to play their part in tackling the climate crisis and environmental damage, the report said. But the Conservative government was dominated by a mantra of “going with the grain of consumer choice” and freedom of choice, it warned, putting the requirement to cut the UK’s emissions to net zero by 2050 at risk.

A third of the reductions required to meet interim targets of reducing emissions by 78% in 13 years had to come from people changing how they travel, what they eat and how they heat their homes, peers said.
But the government’s inadequate approach to enabling public behaviour change risked the country failing to meet net zero targets, they warned.

[nowty]

I'd say I am 1.5 out of the 3.

Changed what I eat - No.

Changed how I travel - EV but still do some air travel.

Changed how I heat my home - Can't you guess.

[Oldgreybeard]

We stopped flying some years ago now, really because when I retired I'd become heartily sick and tired of flying and all the hanging around at airports and the general hassle around immigration controls, security, luggage etc. When I no longer had to fly somewhere every other week or so for work I decided it was about time we explored parts of the UK we'd never been too. Doing this by EV has probably reduced our holiday carbon footprint a fair bit.

The house was designed to be zero emissions, and low energy, and has turned out to be better than zero on both counts, because we export more zero carbon electricity than we use each year ( we use about 4,300kWh and generate around 6,000kWh). Means the house is a net exporter of energy and a net carbon sink, too.

We have changed what we eat, too, mostly because there is an excellent farm shop just a few miles up the road, so we've very much switched to eating a lot more locally produced food.

I would guess that most of our carbon footprint does still come from holidays, though, as we do like to stay in hotels, rather than self-catering, and my guess is that most hotels aren't that great in terms of their emissions and energy usage. Also, a fair part of our holiday travel energy will be from fossil fuel generation, unlike when we are at home, where we can fairly often charge the car for free from the excess solar generation.

There are signs of change, though. We had lunch at James May's pub yesterday. The car park there is usually petrolhead heaven. Yesterday there were four EVs plus a hybrid in the car park (and none of the EVs were Teslas, either).

[spread-tee]

We are the Elephant in the room

We haven't gone as far as some here, but I would bet that even the greenest of us still have Carbon footprints far in excess of what the environment requires. Some time ago I roughly worked out ours was 7 ish tonnes/yr . Looking around me though I can't honestly see much we could or be willing to give up that would make a significant difference. Trying to get populations to radically change habits is going to be a really tall order IMHO.
Sadly we seem to get less co-operative as time goes by, it doesn't bode well

Desp

[Mr Gus]

You need chefs spoonfeeding you samples of good, easily procured ingredients made into meals, good food is good regardless of meat or veg, that versatility in finding "the good stuff" opens up a palate beyond, kfc, et al, as does travel & age.

food is a big key to a bloody big sticking plaster that the environment needs.
(& this is probably why I ask people about prduct / ingredient recommendations when out shopping, my stomach likes good flavoursome food through travel & curiosity)

it sickens me that "no cook foods" are asked for foodbanks as it means less knowledge, less taste, less care & a cant cook wont cook multiple generation household likelihood down the line, meaning more fast food crap becomes a convenience & literal food (barely) without thought.

Travel we can all cut down from, working from home figures clear that one up no end, its still causing turbulence but should be more normalised.

The more time spent at home without commuting cost, the more likely to upgrade a domecile & invest in modern greener tech replacements imho.

[Oldgreybeard]

You need chefs spoonfeeding you samples of good, easily procured ingredients made into meals, good food is good regardless of meat or veg, that versatility in finding "the good stuff" opens up a palate beyond, kfc, et al, as does travel & age.

food is a big key to a bloody big sticking plaster that the environment needs.
(& this is probably why I ask people about prduct / ingredient recommendations when out shopping, my stomach likes good flavoursome food through travel & curiosity)

it sickens me that "no cook foods" are asked for foodbanks as it means less knowledge, less taste, less care & a cant cook wont cook multiple generation household likelihood down the line, meaning more fast food crap becomes a convenience & literal food (barely) without thought.

Travel we can all cut down from, working from home figures clear that one up no end, its still causing turbulence but should be more normalised.

The more time spent at home without commuting cost, the more likely to upgrade a domecile & invest in modern greener tech replacements imho.

There's a very active group of ladies (mostly older then me) that have been running basic cookery lessons for a year or so now, as a result of feedback from the village food bank. Mostly they are finding that there are a LOT of younger people with absolutely no idea as to how to prepare meals from raw ingredients. Seems that domestic science as a school subject has been dropped from the curriculum many years ago, and that there are a lot of people that literally don't know how to boil an egg, let alone cook healthy meals on a very tight budget.

If I had to guess, then I'd say the majority of the ladies running these basic cookery courses are well into their 70's, old enough to remember a time when most food didn't come in almost ready to eat form. Seems really odd to me that cookery and baking programmes are so popular on TV, yet there still seems to be a lot of younger people that have no idea how to prepare a budget meal from local ingredients.

[Stinsy]

I don't think schools can be blamed for lack of cooking skills as much as parents!

I remember going to uni and finding the cooking skills of most of my contemporaries limited to oven chips and other packets/boxes with instructions on the back!

[Mr Gus]

My daughter learnt to crack eggs by repetition, & even recently having not cracked eggs for a while in any qty i was able to still give her the tip cracking open a shell upwards once knocked reduces micro shell chance of dropping into a pan /bowl ..which she hadnt realised / remembered, ..but she as a nervous kid learnt that skill one day from cracking open maybe 120 odd eggs that were bagged & salted or sugared for freezing & use later.

ditto knife skills, cheap veg, repetition till it stuck & her favourite food at the end of it in good supply!

But if a multitude of parents dont even teach their progeny how to wipe their literal backsides then what hope?

Banking skills are prioritied over feeding yourself properly at schools, yet if you "do the math" food prep wise then it offers better than your money in a bank spent on takeaway when you get hungery.

[Oldgreybeard]

I don't think schools can be blamed for lack of cooking skills as much as parents!

I remember going to uni and finding the cooking skills of most of my contemporaries limited to oven chips and other packets/boxes with instructions on the back!

Depends on how the parents were taught, though, and that changed a great deal when society changed and shifted towards expecting ALL education to be the responsibility of the state. Not sure why this happened, but when I was at secondary school in the 1960s teaching basic cooking skills, preparing balanced meals (balanced in terms of nutrition as well as taste) as well as home economics and budgeting for both food costs as well as all normal living costs, was a part of the curriculum. I did my A levels in one year, rather than two, as the school (a secondary modern) had never run a sixth form before. It turned out that the subjects I was doing at A level didn't fill the number of hours I'd be at school, so I was asked to do two O level subjects as well during the sixth form year. I chose domestic science and needlework as my extra O levels, both subjects that were "girls only" in the fourth and fifth years.

Best decision of my life, as it meant that I ate better than most of my student colleagues on the same very tight budget, plus I was able to repair and alter clothes, saving a bit more money that way (as well as making cash by repairing clothes for others). Arguably my mother should have taught me to cook etc, but as the school did such a good job of it she didn't really need to bother (although she did teach me useful stuff like how to wire a plug and how to decorate a room - although the latter was when I wanted my bedroom re-decorated).

[GarethC]

We are the Elephant in the room

We haven't gone as far as some here, but I would bet that even the greenest of us still have Carbon footprints far in excess of what the environment requires. Some time ago I roughly worked out ours was 7 ish tonnes/yr . Looking around me though I can't honestly see much we could or be willing to give up that would make a significant difference. Trying to get populations to radically change habits is going to be a really tall order IMHO.
Sadly we seem to get less co-operative as time goes by, it doesn't bode well

Desp

Agreed. We will ALL still have unsustainably large carbon footprints even after 'walking the walk' as much as is practicable. And let's not forget about our historic emissions (mine make me cringe).

But once we've reduced our footprint as much as we can (say by 70% or whatever is possible without becoming hermits) offsetting the rest has to be the strategy I think (I know I bang on about this a lot).

In terms of lifestyle change, I think the next generation will be willing to go further, and the one after that further still (and it will be easier to do so). Unfortunately, by that point it may be too late.